Campus leftists under fire for refusing to engage in debate with escaped zoo tiger

TORONTO – In a rejection of liberal values characteristic of the modern Left, campus progressives are refusing to debate the eleven-foot man-eating tiger who recently escaped the zoo.

“In a liberal society, everybody deserves their say,” said Atlantic columnist Conor Friedersdorf, unable to spot the 400-kilogram predator that was perfectly camouflaged somewhere in the trees. “I may not agree with what the tiger has to say, but I’ll defend to the death its right to– wait… did anybody else hear that?”

While the tiger has been too busy slaughtering people to articulate policy positions, some conservatives believe we should ‘hear the tiger out’, and that ‘the tiger makes some pretty good points.’

“Look, I’m not saying I agree with the tiger on everything,” said Sherry Brundberg, who took over as the interim president of campus conservatives after the former president was mauled by an unknown assailant. “I consider myself staunchly right-wing, and even I think that eating people goes a bit far. But I’m sorry, cupcakes, it’s Freedom of Speech.”

Young conservatives received the go ahead to lure the tiger onto campus with freshly-slaughtered deer entrails, but they face intense social pressure from groups who believe an animal that eats eleven kilos of raw, bloody flesh every day does not belong in a ‘safe space’.

“Personally, I find the tiger’s views abhorrent,” read a New York Times op-ed column published just after the tiger got onto a school bus filled with third-graders. “But it’s far worse that left-wing groups are protesting by carrying fire and boarding up all their tiger-sized windows.”

“Let’s not forget; there’s plenty of people who find Bernie Sanders’ views offensive, too. It goes both ways.”

While some universities attempted to solve the problem by having a moderator on hand to ask tough questions of the tiger, left wing students have proven immune to reason, and refuse, for unclear reasons, to have the tiger on campus at all.

“It’s important for us to take a stand now,” said columnist Peter Beinart. “Otherwise, before we know it, the militant left will be stopping jaguars, leopards, and even man-eating catfish from making six-figures on the university lecture circuit.”

“I don’t know if our republic could survive that.”

The silencing of campus free speech is the biggest threat to civil society since Barack Obama tried to take assault weapons away from the nation’s escaped baboons.